[mrob]

I'm new to Kodi and beginning to set up my movie library. Got a couple of questions about how I should handle certain cases.

(1) Let's say I have two different versions of the same movie, both are DVD rips (VIDEO_TS). E.g., one is from a French distributor, with subtitles and extras, the other is from a German distributor, with different extras.

Q: Is there some way that I can have both of them in my movie library, automatically scraped with the same basic info, but with slightly different names so that I can pick and play either the French or the German one?

(2) Let's say I have a single DVD that contains three or four or ten different short films (e.g., shorts by Buster Keaton). Each film is in the IMDB but that have been bundled together on a single DVD.

Q: How should I handle this?

Thanks!

[DaVu]

Q: Is there some way that I can have both of them in my movie library, automatically scraped with the same basic info, but with slightly different names so that I can pick and play either the French or the German one?

Yes. You can rename movies after they have been scraped into your library by using the context menu on the specific videos.

 

(2) Let's say I have a single DVD that contains three or four or ten different short films (e.g., shorts by Buster Keaton). Each film is in the IMDB but that have been bundled together on a single DVD.

There are different options. The one that I prefere is to extract each movie and store them as a mkv or something similiar and scrape the single items. That would be the easiest solution.

You are also able to rip the complete DVD as an ISO (as I guess it will have some menus) and depending on your OS, you are able to create symlinks to that file in different folders giving the symlinks different names to scrape for. That will always point to the ripped ISO but all symlinks will be listed as individual entries in the video library. The contra on this is, that it will always start the menu of that DVD (if it has one) or at least the first movie on that disc. So I generally would avoid that.

[mrob]

Q: Is there some way that I can have both of them in my movie library, automatically scraped with the same basic info, but with slightly different names so that I can pick and play either the French or the German one?

Yes. You can rename movies after they have been scraped into your library by using the context menu on the specific videos. 

 Is there a way I can do this via the web UI or the file system itself? I mean, by renaming the files there?

I have Kodi on a media server, use the web UI, and move files to the media server via NFS.

I tried renaming the movie via More > Edit in the web UI, but it doesn't change the name of the directory on the disc. And to have multiple copies, the names of the directories need to be unique.

Another possibility: can I somehow tell the info scraper to ignore anything in square brackets? That way, I could have titles like: The Movie [FR subs] (2018).

[Karellen]

The Chorus2 Web Interface won't rename your files or folders. It is a Library only editor.

The Movie [FR subs] (2018) won't work, but this will work in most (not all) cases... The Movie (2018) - [FR subs]

And for those stubborn movies that will not scrape due to the modified name, a simple Parsing NFO will fix that... https://kodi.wiki/view/NFO_files#Parsing_nfo

As for your Extras, you can use one of the Extras addons... https://kodi.wiki/view/Extras

If the Buster Keating movies are on IMDB, then create a new Source, add the Universal Movie Scraper as the scraper and change the settings to scrape from IMDB. That way they will be listed in your library.

[mrob]

Thanks much. I will try these suggestions.

One more question: after fiddling with titles and re-scanning, I now have several duplicate entires in the library. It seems like there is some kind of cache.

Question: Is there a way to flush the cache and then re-scan?

[Karellen]

after fiddling with titles and re-scanning, I now have several duplicate entires in the library

If you did not remove the movies before modifying them, then yes you will have duplicates. The library operates from a database independent of your files and folders. Now that you modified the folders, Kodi thinks it is a new movie, not the same one with a modified folder name.

You can use Clean Library which should remove them... https://kodi.wiki/view/Settings/Media/Li...eo_Library

if that does not work, you can highlight the duplicate, call up the Context Menu, select Manage then Remove from library

[mrob]

It all works — thanks again!